With the Coalition’s nuclear fantasy demolished by CSIRO, Labor must get cracking on renewables

The new CSIRO GenCost 2023-24 report released this week makes for very interesting reading.

In the report, the Australian Government’s independent scientific body subjects the nuclear barracking of Peter Dutton and Ted O’Brien to a comprehensive science and economics based, peer reviewed debunking. 

Peter Dutton has now pivoted to spruiking large scale nuclear reactors, having repeatedly thumped the table last year asserting in the face of all the available evidence that small modular reactors are the solution for Australia’s energy transition, with a similar reception from the CSIRO.

The CSIRO finds that even if we started in 2025, Australia could not realistically have a nuclear plant operational until 2040 at the earliest, small or large.

This is too late. We need to act now – this critical decade – to slash emissions and energy costs. 

While nuclear is workable in some other economies globally as a zero-emissions energy source – in fact, as we wrote previously, nuclear is a material part of the energy mix in communist China as that nation rapidly decarbonises – it is simply not viable here.

This is the case given the protracted timeframes required for deployment, as well as the capital cost, technical barriers, the absence of the skills and supply chains required, and the legislative bans. And no private firm in the world can or will finance nuclear power plants absent massive government propping-up in the form of huge public capital commitments, operational, insurance and cleanup cost subsidies and indemnities.

Here, the nuclear fantasy would be the ultra-high cost option, extending and locking in the cost of living crisis hammering Australians via permanently higher energy costs.

The report finds that the estimated levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) range for large-scale nuclear is A$155-252 per megawatt hour (MWh), or a lot more if we don’t commit to a continuous nuclear buildout program.

CSIRO says that is double the cost of fully firmed renewable energy of $90-100/MWh by 2030, even after adding every conceivable cost into the equation for renewables such as grid transmission, curtailment, and both short and long duration battery firming.

Further, the CSIRO notes that in Australia, which has no history of nuclear, deploying ‘first of a kind” (FOAK) technologies would mean the delivered capital cost would likely be 25-100% higher than the internationally comparable benchmark.

For the initial deployment here, then, nuclear’s LCOE would likely be more than four times as expensive as firmed renewable energy.

The recent international experience in western countries with established nuclear power such as the UK and the US, is a litany of eye watering cost-blowouts and massive delays. The Vogtle nuclear power plant expansion debacle in Georgia, US, is a case point, the most expensive public works project in US history at US$35bn, with consumers left to carry the can for the runaway costs. 

And the £32.7bn Hinkley Point C is a millstone around the UK ratepayers necks for the next 60 years or so, even as EDF of France took a €12bn writedown on this white elephant in February 2024 after China General Nuclear (CGN) walked away in December 2023. 

The 2020 Korean government US$2bn bailout of Doosan Heavy Industries followed the slow-moving trainwreck of Japan’s once proud corporate leader Toshiba after it acquired Wesinghouse US, which then subsequently filed for bankruptcy amid US$12bn of write-offs. But Ted O’Brien knows more about nuclear than the likes of Toshiba, Westinghouse, Georgia Power, Doosan, EDF and CGN!

Any government proposing a nuclear “solution” here would be robbing the people thrice.

Once via massive public subsidies in the $10-30bn range to get the first nuclear unit up. Again via locking in long-term hyperinflated energy prices for the subsequent 30-60 years as we are powered by nuclear. And once more by imposing the opportunity cost of yet another delay to the transformation of our energy system to viable zero-emissions alternatives.

Furthermore, this ridiculous approach would ensure rolling blackouts over the next decade or two:  the day the government commits to build multiple nuclear power plants here in Australia would mean most other planned investments in electricity sector infrastructure would be frozen immediately, as political risk would make these proposals uninvestable. 

Nuclear makes even less sense as we transition our economy to a post carbon future, look to position ourselves as a global zero-emissions trade and investment leader, and reindustrialise to make things there, as exemplified in the Albanese Federal Government’s Future Made in Australia program.

Nuclear energy would drive a further deindustrialisation of Australian manufacturing as rampant power price inflation increases costs of processing and manufacture.

This is exactly the wrong direction of travel when we need to rebuild our industrial base by playing to the comparative advantage of our abundant, non-depleting renewable energy resources to power onshore processing of our world-leading critical minerals, strategic metals and cleantech components, enabling us to export embodied decarbonisation.

On reliability, the CSIRO report also warns that large scale of nuclear is undermined by unplanned unit outage risks, meaning that huge 1,000-1,400MW nuclear units would need expensive backup capacity to ensure system integrity (CSIRO doesn’t add this extra cost in, whereas it does when costing renewables).

In short, nuclear is not a viable solution to concerns around ensuring security of energy supply during the transition to net zero. 

The report exposes once and for all the Coalition’s nuclear furphy for what it is: the Opposition’s latest efforts to reignite the decade long climate-wars, sow disinformation and discord in the energy and climate debate and delay the transition to firmed renewables – the cheapest, cleanest form of energy – so as to prolong fossil fuels and serve the vested interests of LNP donors.

It is uncontroversial that the solution to our concurrent energy, cost of living and climate crises is an accelerated deployment of infrastructure to leverage our superabundant wind and solar, backed up by battery storage, and a modernised transmission grid that leverages orchestration, vehicle-to-grid, demand response management, time-of-day tariffs and virtual power plants.

The federal government has made some good progress on this, principally via the Capacity investment Scheme, which is helping to turbocharge the rollout by underwriting private investment in utility-scale renewables and firming. 

But we need to see more urgent development approvals across the state governments where delays in approval of project pipelines have chronically comprised the speed of deployment.

There must be a greater concentration on pubic investment in distributed firmed renewables and grid orchestration, and concerted efforts on the part of key grid connection and transmission players like AEMO and Transgrid to lift their game and get completed projects connected to the grid at speed.

Collectively those responsible for decarbonisation of our grid need to deliver on project timelines as promised, stepping up as if they see the climate crisis as an existential threat, one already disproportionately impacting First Nations peoples in the Torres Strait and our Pacific neighbours.

From a pragmatic supply point of view, the clock is ticking as climate change escalates and end of life coal power clunkers near retirement struggle and fail to operate in the face of extreme weather events in 2024, let alone remain reliable for a couple of decades beyond their design life. 

We can only assume this moribund fleet of carbon belchers is what Dutton and O’Brien think will continue to power our grid till 2040 while we wait for the first nuclear white elephant to heave into view. 

Meantime, as everyone else gets on with the transition, we look forward to the spectacle of the nuclear spruikers of the LNP, marooned on the wrong side of history and bleating into the wind, tying themselves in knots as they try to spin their way out of the demolition of nuclear that the CSIRO has nicely accomplished.

Tim Buckley is director of Climate Energy Finance. AM Jonson is chief of staff, CEF